JR SportBrief Hour 2

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It is the JR Sport Brief show here with you on CBS Sports Radio. Happy Thursday night, I hope you've had a tremendous day, a tremendous evening, a tremendous night. I'm going to be hanging out with you for the next three hours. I appreciate you. I'm coming to you live from Atlanta, Georgia. Much love to everybody listening at least here in Atlanta on 92.9 The Game, all my good old friends and buddies. And thank you to everybody listening all over the country.

And so if your radio station is named The Ticket, The Fan, The Show, I don't know what they call the station. Thank you. That's all I can say. Just thank you. Okay. Let's rock and roll and have some fun together. Much love to everybody on Sirius XM Channel 158 and everybody listening on a smart speaker.

Okay. I get started 10 p.m Eastern, 7 Pacific. Thank you to super producer and host Dave Shepherd. He's holding it down for us in New York City. And we opened up the show by talking about Major League Baseball and its All-Star ratings. The All-Star ratings just continued to hit a record low.

Another one. This past Tuesday, only 7 million people watched the All-Star game on Fox. 7.5 million people watched last year. And if we want to go back to the heyday for the Major League Baseball All-Star game, we can go to games in the 70s and the 80s. Man, you could count on 14 to sometimes 20 million people tuning in to watch the All-Star game. But we know people's viewing habits have changed not just for baseball, but for everything. TikTok and Netflix and cell phones and iPads and just anything that you could think of is grabbing people's attention.

There's just so many options. We talked about Sean Casey introduced as the Yankees new hitting coach of the New York Yankees like everybody else is going to be back in action on Friday as the All-Star break is done. I know the Yankees are going to be out in Colorado. Maybe Sean Casey can give them some tips out in that thin old air. As we continue on with the show, we're going to talk about James Harden, everybody's favorite basketball player slash strip club aficionado. We're going to talk about the Washington commanders. It looks like there might be a little bit of a snag in their potential sale from Daniel Snyder to Josh Harris.

Speaking of legal snags, Ja Morant and beating up a 17-year-old feels that it was a matter of self-defense. And then we're going to get into Messi. We'll talk about him. He's finally here in the United States of America in southern Florida getting ready for his MLS debut and Shohei Ohtani, another international sensation.

He's been in the United States of America for years and now it's time for him to move on from the Angels. We'll talk about all of it. We have some callers who have been waiting patiently here on the line so I want to make sure we get them on before I talk about Mr. James Harden. Marty is calling from Westchester. You're on CBS Sports Radio. What's up, Marty?

Hey, good evening, JR. Good to talk to you. Very interesting topic regarding the All-Star Game. And you're absolutely right. There's been a drastic change and revealing happens in society for recent times.

But I want to focus on the game itself. I think a factor in terms of the All-Star Game losing its attractiveness is the fact that baseball has become more homogenized, meaning that we have so many impolite games now. I mean, now with the new schedule this year, every team in one league plays every team in the other league. Now, when I was growing up, the All-Star Game was really an event because when I was a youngster, you'd have William Mays and McCovey and Roberto Clemente and Aaron going to an American League City for an All-Star Game. That was big for American League fans to see these great National League stars and vice versa. Now, I mean, with the balanced schedule, I just don't think the All-Star Game means as much to the average baseball fan as it used to way back when.

You think that there's basically too much interleague play? Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Okay. It's a part of it. I think the issues kind of scan wide and far, but I certainly hear you there. The exclusivity is gone.

I would say that is certainly one of the issues. Appreciate you, Marty. It's good talking to you, man. I'll be on the fan on Friday, excuse me, Saturday, okay?

Saturday, I know, in the afternoon. I'll be looking for you. Okay. Thank you, Marty. Have a good evening, JR. You as well.

Shout-outs to my main man, Marty. Hey, listen, folks, when I'm not here talking to the whole country, I'm up in New York on Saturdays talking to everybody in New York City, telling all the Yankee fans and the Mets fans and the Jets fans and the Giants fans and the Knicks fans and the Nets fans to relax. Relax. Just complaining for no damn reason.

All the Yankees, oh, they didn't win the World Series since 2009. Fire everybody. Just relax. Tommy is calling from New Orleans. You're on the JR Sport Brief Show. JR, how's it going, my brother? Great topic, dude.

What a great topic on an off day and feeling like that. I was thinking this the other day, man, when you said it earlier, that the MLB is purposefully just eliminating all their outlets, right? You can't find a baseball game anywhere. I mean, on TV or whatever, other than online. And to your point that pro sports is driven by revenue. They sell the rights to the broadcasting. So if the broadcast rights have been devalued and then all you have left is Amazon and God knows what else, because the TV networks don't make any more money because nobody's watching TV, as you said, over and over again. I mean, now what?

Like, what happens after that? You know, we're all watching, you know, 2B and 3B and stuff like that. And I mean, do you, when's the last time you ever heard of, JR, do you remember TiVo? Oh yeah, TiVo, the little television. Yeah, you record, you record.

Yeah, TiVo, you record. I mean, that was like 10 years ago and it's gone, right? Well, damn it, do you remember WebTV? Yeah, man. Yeah, that was from the 90s.

I had WebTV, yeah. I guess what's happening is, I mean, we're watching history. I guess we always are, but it's going by real quickly and nobody's gonna stop the train. I mean, you referenced it in your open, you know, it applies to your own industry. You know, you don't know who's listening on what station or whatever. All you care is that somebody is listening and now they have all these other alternatives. So I wonder what that landscape's going to look like, you know, and I don't know, five years from now. Yeah, well, wait until a robot is doing my job. You won't know the difference. No, dude, I will always follow you. You and I will be, you know, hanging out with soup cans and just talking to each other like an old folks. I'm not denying that. I just said you won't know the difference.

That's it. You won't know. I could be a robot right now. This could be AI.

I'm on vacation. You don't know. Well, you're absolutely right and I can be, you know, in the ground already.

I mean, it's trippy, dude. Listen, the Sean Casey thing is intriguing to me. Only because I like Sean Casey and, you know, I love baseball and things like that. Do you think that might be compared to like a Jeff Saturday thing or I'm not completely off base on that?

No, I don't think so. They didn't hand the reins over to him to run the team. But let's keep in mind, Aaron Boone came directly from the ESPN booth to be the New York Yankees manager. So if you want to talk about it, yeah, I mean, if you want to talk about a Jeff Saturday situation, Aaron Boone got the job and fell out of a television booth. So Sean Casey being an analyst, we know that they were both players.

They both made a few All-Star teams, but I'm not going to go to the extent of, hey, let's just put you in to run the whole show with zero experience. Yeah, that's true. That's true. All right, brother. Well, have a good show, man. Always enjoy it.

And hey, everybody, y'all are listening to the most underrated sports show in the planet. All right. Way to brother. Thank you, Tommy.

Have a wonderful evening. Sean is calling from Oregon. You're on the JR Sport Brief Show.

Hey, thanks for taking my call. Jr. I think Yankee fans have a reason to be a little nervous if they're getting a new hitting coach halfway through the year like this. That's usually not a movie make until the off season. Let's something's going wrong. And they're in second to last place.

I sure hope they get Otani, you know, either that would be a big thing, big thing for him or, you know, him go to the Dodgers, you know, someplace like that. And with you on the, you know, the viewership on baseball, you're right. You know, it's been going downhill. And, you know, there ain't no kids out there playing sandlot ball. You know, the kids are all, you know, they're riding the skateboard parks. You know, I see the skateboard parks kids there and ain't nobody out there playing baseball. That or they're playing video games, one or the other.

Thank you, Sean, for calling from Oregon. Yeah, yeah, New York Yankee fans have reason for worry. And it's not so much just because that they got a new hitting coach, it's because they just ain't hitting. That's it. You didn't need to fire the hitting coach and bring in Sean Casey to realize that. They've just been pathetic this year.

It's amazing that they're not worse. Greg is here from Michigan. You're on the JR sport brief show. Go ahead, Greg. Hey, JR, Mr. Positive, thanks for excuse me. Wow, you've got a lot of great things as always. Sports is becoming so segmented.

I don't think in any way, shape or form, revenues coming from various outlets, it's going to be profitable because it's so segmented in so many different ways that the profit and utility of that profit is going to be so minute. Number one, number two, I got to ask you, JR, Mr. Agents of Inclusion, everybody watched the podcast. Fantastic. The last one you did.

Fantastic. Why is baseball gone down? Why hasn't football or hockey or basketball gone down the way the major league baseball has? Why have people lost interest? Let's think about this from a historical perspective.

Let's think about this from a distribution perspective. Baseball is old as dirt and we can look at football and say the similar, but baseball is older than them all. And there was a point in time in history where baseball was a great option.

Let's listen to this. Baseball, if you want to say was or is, don't matter to me, baseball is a pastime. Baseball is America's pastime.

Baseball is as American as apple pie. Well, let's understand this. Things change. Like the population of the United States of America has changed. The interests in America have changed. Technology has changed.

And for a sport that is built on patience and speed and just that the intricacies of it, it kind of contrasts and butts heads with what people are looking for in society. Whoa, JR. Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. You're spot on, my friend. Love you, everybody.

Go for your dreams. Well, thank you, Greg. I wasn't done, but I appreciate you. Let me put it to you this way and another way. Baseball is like making your food in the oven and having no choice, none.

Everything else going on in the world, if you want to look at other sports, it's like the microwave. I put it in there. I hit a button and it's done. Okay.

It's, it's that simple. Do many people, do you want to sit around putting your stuff in the oven? Yeah, if you cook, you have no choice for certain things, but people want it now.

What am I getting now? I don't know a lot of people who just say, eh, I'm going to sit down and watch football after football game after football game. Certain people do. I know a lot of people who just watch the highlights. I mean, the NFL had a whole station with the red zone that we're only going to show you the scores and we're going to show you what's important.

So you don't have to sit down and watch a team try to go from in between the twenties. So look, people's viewing habits change. And if you're fast and you're quick and you're moving, if you're the NFL highlights, highlight after highlight after highlight, if you're the NBA highlight after highlight after highlight, you don't have to watch the game to keep up and be interested.

That's where the world is. It's the JR sport reshow on CBS sports radio 8 5 5 2 1 2 4 CBS. Speaking of highlights, James Harden has provided many of them throughout the course of his career.

I think they are now going to be running low. And unfortunately, James Harden wants off of another team. We also know where he reportedly wants to go. We're going to talk about James Harden and his musical chairs of NBA basketball on the other side of the break. It's the JR sport reshow.

Don't move. CBS sports radio. You're listening to the JR sport brief on CBS sports radio.

Hi, JR. Pleasure to speak to you. You know, just recently discovered your show a few weeks ago and just got to tell you that you've got a very easy listening style.

Call in now at 8 5 5 2 1 2 4 CBS. Oh, listen, I try to keep it easy. I don't care if it's Thursday night. I care if it's Monday, it could be Friday. I try to keep it easy like Sunday morning.

I do. I try my best. Anyway, I'm going to keep it easy right now. I'm going to tell you about somebody who ain't easy. Hey, Shep. I know, I know where you're going with this. Do you?

Of course. You know, anybody who is, uh, just difficult to deal with. Do you know anybody who just changes their mind out of women? Have you ever encountered someone in life where you just go, Hey, well, what do you want to eat? It's like, pick something. And then they go, I want to eat this and they want to do this. And then they change.

Have you ever gone on a trip, Shep? Yes. And someone just says, well, let's do this.

And then they changed their mind. Have you ever met any of those types of people? So the qualities of being indecisive and then pointing the fingers at anyone but yourself. Yes. There are plenty of those people in every one of our lives.

Unfortunately, hopefully less than more for most of us. And it doesn't matter what, what aspect of life too, right? Yeah. And it also hurts when, uh, you got to continue to talk about this person because that's all they've done in their 14 year MBA career. Oh, it's James. Yeah. We're talking about James Harden. I think we all know Kevin Durant, not forget Kevin Durant. It's all about James Harden just over the last. And you know what? I have to give James Harden some credit here.

Okay. When he left the Oklahoma City Thunder and finally got his own team with the Houston Rockets, I had to go, well, damn, this is amazing. I had to go, well, damn, this is amazing. He's finally unleashed. He was fun to watch unless then it got to a point where you're just like, Oh man, the drawing of the fouls is just way too much.

It's a pain in the ass. He was exciting. James Harden went out there and played in just about every game.

He went all out. His body is paying for it right now. He can still play.

He can still pass. People want to talk about his shooting and lack thereof. He's an amazing passer over the years now from when he left Houston, when he went to Brooklyn and now in Philadelphia, he's become unbearable.

And now it's been reported. He wants out from Philadelphia. We heard this a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, we heard about this, but now we've heard it again over the past 24 hours that James Harden is dead set on going to play for the Los Angeles Clippers, where I assume he would play with Kawhi and maybe Paul George if Paul George is not moved. James Harden is going to turn 34 years old in August. He's going into the hall of fame, a 10-time All-Star, three-time scoring champ, MVP of the league five years ago. He's accomplished. He's not postseason accomplished. He's not championship accomplished. When he went to the finals, he was a young dude, still basically a sixth man in Oklahoma City with a young Kevin Durant and a young Russell Westbrook. And we know last season, he basically had to join Philadelphia, take less money, and now he's opting into the final year of his contract and he wants to be moved. Like, come on. And he's with Daryl Morey, the guy who basically brought him in to Houston.

And even that isn't good enough. I guess he's not happy that he ultimately didn't get a big deal. And so James Harden, he's changed his mind a lot. And I want you to listen to this. A few seasons ago, on his way out the door from Houston, he basically annihilated his teammates to force his way out. This is what James Harden had to say about his Rockets teammates when he basically quit on them.

Listen. We're just not good enough. You know, we just don't, you know, obviously chemistry, talent wise, just everything. And it was clear, like I said, these last few games, they just from the beginning of the game, it was aggressive veteran team, obviously, a championship team.

And, you know, one of the best teams that we have in this league, you know, I love this city. I literally, you know, I've done everything that I can, you know, I mean, this situation is crazy. You know, it's something that I don't think can be fixed. So, yeah, thanks. Yeah, thanks. Yeah.

Yeah, thanks. We're just not good enough. You can't go back in the locker room after that. He ain't playing another game for the Houston Rockets. He was moved on or they moved him on and they moved him to Brooklyn. And then James Harden is in Brooklyn, sick of the Kyrie Irving nonsense, sick of the injuries to Kevin Durant and ultimately gets moved to Philly. And there were enough conversations before then, James Harden telling everybody, oh, I'm not requesting a trade to leave Brooklyn. I'm not leaving Brooklyn.

Where did you hear that? I'm not. I didn't say I wanted to leave. Hey, James, are you happy here? Yeah, I'm happy here. Until he finally got to Philly and basically told everybody when I left Houston, I wanted to be in Philly the whole damn time. Listen to this. Philly was my first choice.

I just knew, you know, for a very long time, this was a perfect fit. Oh, okay. So Houston wasn't good enough. We're not good enough. You go to Brooklyn. I didn't, I didn't say I don't want to be here. And then he goes to Philly and says, well, I didn't want to stop in Brooklyn. I wanted to go to Philly the whole damn time. And now he doesn't want to be in Philadelphia.

This is like trying to figure out what a toddler wants to eat for lunch. James Harden is changing his mind at every opportunity and chance. You're about to be 34 years old in a few weeks, man.

Just play it out. Are your hamstrings going to hold up? Are your knees going to be okay?

Are the strippers going to ruin your vision? I mean, I have no idea. But this is nauseating and Doc Rivers can't stand his ass either. Doc Rivers got the boot. Nick Nurse is now the head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers.

And what a world we live in. Doc Rivers told you everything you needed to know about James Harden. When Doc Rivers was on Bill Simmons podcast and he was asked about James Harden and he's like, man, I wish I got him when he was younger, not this old piece of crap now. It was challenging more because we were fighting two things and not like visually fighting is that James is so good at playing one way. And the way that I believe you have to play to win in some ways is different because it's a lot of giving up the ball, moving the ball, coming back to the ball. I would have loved to have him younger when that was easier for him because giving up the ball and getting back the ball is hard.

Like it's physical, it's exhausting. So it's been interesting if I had him younger where he could have done that more, you know, coming off of dribble handoffs, going down the hill, you know, he didn't finish as well as he finished because he's older. Hey, the way I think you win basketball games, isn't the way that James Harden plays.

I'm doing my own mental math. I mean, I'm putting words in Doc Rivers mouth. So James Harden plays like a loser. He plays losing basketball. He doesn't give up the ball because he's old. He knows how to play one way with the ball in his hand. He ain't coming around screens, not cutting to the basket. He's going to pass the ball and stand there.

If he ain't shooting, he's going to pass and he ain't moving. And this guy wants to move on to the Clippers. I hope James Harden is stuck with the Sixers.

I hope he is because the Sixers fans are going to boo his ass. They can't keep him there. And Houston Rockets ain't want him either. For what? To take shots away from Jalen Green and everybody else? Hell no. James Harden, I hope the next place you pick and just stay there is retirement.

We don't need to hear this every six months. 855-212-4CBS. It's 855-212-4CBS. Martin is calling from Toronto. You're on the JR Sport Brief Show. Hey, JR, how are you? I'm amazing.

How are you? I'm sad because I've seen the developments at the New York Times sports section. I used to be a journalist myself and that was outstanding writing in its day through its whole history. You're not happy with them eliminating their sports department? Oh no, absolutely not because that's some of the best writing you would ever see. It was outstanding writing and I can think of a few years ago they used to run fly fishing articles every Saturday and they used to run fly fishing articles every Saturday. These were outstanding people in the field of fishing and their writing was brilliant.

So I'm just sad to see that's gone or it's going to go. It's unfortunate that the New York Times, but the writing was on the wall from when the New York Times purchased The Athletic. Have you read any of The Athletic's articles, any of their content?

Yeah, I have. It's not very in-depth. I mean, you talk about years ago when they would do profiles of Kareem and they did almost a whole psychological study of his personality.

It was outstanding. It's not something you're going to see in The Athletic. Yeah, well, I agree with you. It's the world we live in. I know we talked earlier in the show about television viewing habits and just media and journalism is changing just like everything else. I'll tell you, I know there are a lot of people who are not necessarily a fan of the Times because one village idiot decided to scream about it, but it is. It's some of the best writing. Look, I'll put it to you this way.

When I was a kid, and I mean kid, when I was like 10 and 11 and 12 years old, I know it sounds ridiculous. Man, I couldn't wait for the New York Times to be in my house on Sunday. I would read it and flip through it all day long. Am I going to sit down and tell you that I read about the Cold War inside out?

No, but it was great reading and it opened up my brain to the rest of the world. But look, we see things change. People have shorter attention spans. I understand where you're coming from. It is sad, but we moved into a world of shock journalism.

Let me just scream from the mountain and get a point out. It's the way things are. I like it.

Back in the 50s and 60s, the boxing writers and baseball writers were usually the best writers of the whole newspaper. So that's how far down this whole industry has slid. Things change, Martin, and not always for the better. I appreciate you, brother. You be well, OK? Yeah, thanks.

No doubt about it. Let's go from Toronto, Canada, down to Alabama. Here's Chris. You're on CBS Sports Radio. Hey, Jr.

Thanks for having me on. No doubt, yeah, I mean everything you said about James Harden is I just think it's spot on. You know, you think about what he is today. He's aging, so he's not any better. He's always been a defensive liability. He's always been an eyesore ball, and I got his way down. I don't get. Oh, so phone is really going to get what's really going to get for him.

Bra, I have no idea, not not a lot. Let's keep in mind he's he's on an expiring contract, having opted into his deal, and so it's not going to be one of these multiple first round picks. That's not where James Harden is at at this stage of his career. It's just he's he's he's at the point, and I enjoyed him in his prime in Houston, watching him as a single talent. He's one of the guys that I'd say, Oh my God, James Harden is on the Rockets are playing whoever.

I just want to see how many points he can put up by himself. But we're past that man and all of this. I want to go here. I want to go there.

Enough, enough, enough, enough. Just go home. Go go back to your house in Houston. Go to the strip clubs. Go to Vegas and just just go away. We don't.

We don't need it. Chris, thank you man. I appreciate you. Yeah.

No doubt about it. I'm sorry Chris. I don't know what's going on with Chris's cell phone service, but it's bad. It's the JR Sport Reef show on CBS Sports Radio. Unlike his cell phone service, things are good here and on the other side of the break. You know, speaking of James Harden, we know that there was a point in time in his career where he was just always criticized for flopping.

Well, the NBA has instituted some new rules for flopping that will start this upcoming season, and I'm going to tell you about them on the other side of the break. You're listening to the JR Sport Brief on CBS Sports Radio. You're listening to the JR Sport Brief on CBS Sports Radio. What you have, you can't even put a price on it because you have a platform and you always handle your platform with responsibility, and for that I look up to you and I respect you and I appreciate you.

Call in now at 855-212-4CBS. It's the JR Sport Reef show on CBS Sports Radio. We talked about James Harden. If you think about James Harden, he wants to go to the Clippers now, reportedly. There was a point in time where you said James Harden and his name was synonymous with flopping, and the NBA has finally taken a step to try and eliminate flopping, which has been prevalent forever, more recently a whole hell of a lot more. Players trying to deceive the referees, players trying to act, and we see flopping all over the place. Flopping is in soccer all the time.

You breathe on somebody and the next thing you know he's rolling around in the grass like he got hit by a a sniper rifle. He's just on the ground and nobody touched him. And so the NBA has been experimenting with this new rule here in summer league and we've just learned that this rule will be implemented for the 23 or excuse me how about this the 2023-24 season. The rule states when a ref calls a player for a flop the player is going to be issued an unsportsmanlike or excuse me a non-unsportsmanlike technical foul which means that this won't go against them potentially being ejected. The opposing team is going to get one free throw attempt and the penalty can be assessed whenever the referee decides to go ahead and give it to them. So they don't have to stop the game and say hey you flopped and you take a free throw.

They can actually continue on with the play and at a dead ball situation he could say hey James Harden flopped and now the New York Knicks get a free throw. Is this going to slow down flopping? Yes, yes it is. Are we going to get to a point at the beginning of the season where we got a bunch of whining ass players complaining about I didn't do this, I didn't do that? Yes. Are the referees going to be overly aggressive?

Yes. They're going to have to work out the kinks. It's probably going to take a month or two months and then we'll see the rate of these flopping calls go down but it's good because it was obviously a problem in the NBA. After the Golden State Warriors were pretty much eliminated or during the course of the postseason, during one of Steve Kerr's press conferences he talked about the NBA doing something to stop the flop and he evoked FIBA.

Take a listen. To me, what I've learned coaching in FIBA, FIBA has a great rule. There's a flop rule and if a referee deems that a player has flopped they just call it a technical foul and it's pretty penalizing and so the flopping has basically been eliminated from FIBA. We have the ability to do the same thing in the NBA if we want. I think we should address it because the players are so smart and the entire regular season is about gamesmanship and trying to fool the refs. This is how it's been for a while and it's up to us as a league.

Do we want to fix this? Because if not, we'll just get the Chris Paul swipe through at half court when you're in the bonus. For some reason, we're shooting two free throws at a critical time of a playoff game when nothing has happened and nobody's gained an advantage. So these are all things that, my personal plea to the NBA, I think we can do better in terms of cleaning up the flopping. Oh damn, and they listened to Steve Kerr now didn't they?

Or maybe Steve Kerr already knew it was in the works. Hey Shep, you think flopping is going to be curtailed here? To some degree, yes.

Yeah, it'll take some time, but it's due. We need guys playing, and look, the players are smart. They're always going to find their way around plenty of things. One of Trae Young's patented moves that he's had to slow down is pretty much a dribble and a stop in a shot attempt where the player's momentum would kind of take him into the back of Trae Young and it's deceptive. Is it smart? Yes, but is it like, you know, really taking advantage of your skill? Or is it gamesmanship? It's a little bit of both, but we want to see you ball out, not take advantage of the rules.

And so there's certain things that the NBA has already started to eliminate. And I like this. Go play the game. Don't try to fall down if you're seven foot tall and 300 pounds. We don't need to see the six-foot point guard knocking you over for emphasis. Just play the game. Play the game.

And so I'm glad that the NBA has finally started to do something about the flopping. I think it'll work. 855-212-4CBS. That's 855-212-4CBS. Sully is from Michigan. Sully, what do you think? Sully is from Michigan. Sully, what do you think? Hey, JR. Long time listener, first time caller.

Yeah, I'm going from Sterling Heights, Michigan. Hey, you know, I want to backtrack to your previous topic because it ties into this topic. So if I may start on your last topic, you'll see the parallel. Is that okay, sir?

All right. The All-Star game. I grew up, I was born in 61. I grew up like seven years old in 1968. I started following baseball. And the All-Star game had the, that was the golden age of baseball. You had Mickey Mantle, you had Hank Aaron, you had Willie Mays, and you had Frank Howard.

Then you fast forward till the end of the 80s. That's when I dived out of baseball because they start letting, what'd you say, whining ass cry babies in, like Derek Jeter's and people like that. So baseball was out. And Jeter, he's kind of like Harding now.

Mr. Harding, whoa. The NBA's already in enough trouble, okay? It's a dying sport. And I like it and I follow it. And I want to see, I want to see Philly do us a solid.

And for the love of the game, and now NBA, sit his ass on the bench, pay him out a contract, so that when it expires, and I don't know when that is, nobody else will sign that raggedy ass old man. What say you? Nothing, Sully. You said it all. Thank you for calling from Michigan.

Hey, Shep, we're going to lose our license to broadcast with all of the profanity there. How about that? Wow. Yeah.

Raggedy ass. Whoa. Right. Well, fortunately you didn't say anything that was FCC violation. Close enough. Yeah. I need to wash my ears.

What happens if I put soap in my ears? So much for the boomers being careful and selective with their language, huh? Oh, boomers? Wow. Well, he's a baby boomer. Wow. Is everybody accepting of that?

19 what? In terms of? Just saying, hey man, you're a baby boomer. Well, he's 1961.

He's a baby boomer. Sure. But is it okay for you to say that? Of course it is. It's okay for him to say it.

No, it's okay for me to say it. He's a baby boomer. That's what he is. Just like we're on the late side of generation X, early side of millennials.

Okay. It's just a fact. It's like if I said someone was born in the Great Depression, I can say that. It's historically factual. It sounds like he was born in the Great Depression.

He was suffering from the Great Depression on the evening, given the fact that he was talking about James Harden the way he was. I want you to say that. I want you to say that to someone to their face when they say, when they tell you how old they are, just go, oh, well, you, you were born in the Depression.

And they may, I want to see their reaction. It's a badge of honor. Let's be honest, JR. You're a student of history. The toughest times, and I don't mean to sound cliche here, but it's God's honest truth. The toughest times in anybody's life brings out the best in you.

Yeah. Well, we haven't, America hasn't had no tough times recently. Why we got so many punks?

Well, we, we, we actually have not had as tough times as we'd like to think. We just like, we, a lot of people are dramatic these days, unfortunately. So why all the young people want stuff for free? Because people are very entitled and a lot of people are born with silver spoons in their mouth and, and, and, and, and the generation now, there's an instant gratification mindset that a lot of people have. Why don't they want to work? Why they lazy bums? Because in school, oh, JR, we can get into this conversation. This is a very deep and rich conversation.

I'd love to get in with you sometime if there's ever a space for that on your show. Oh, I know why they're lazy bums. Well, in schools, we're more worried about budgets and test scores than we are about producing and engendering good quality civic human beings. And that's the biggest problem with our society. We got a bunch of idiots running around, man. Oh, we do.

And we've got a bunch of idiots that are running things too. Oh yeah, oh yeah. That's what I mean. Just running around everywhere.

Right. Oh, without a shadow of a doubt, we got a bunch of idiots. Bunch of old idiots too.

Everywhere. Just a bunch of old idiots all over the place. Hey, Shub, what are you, boomers.

There you go. Some of them older than that. How about I got another word? Some of them are ancient. I didn't say that, but you didn't say it. I said, I said what I said. Maybe one day I'll get to be ancient. I don't care. I'm here now.

That's all that matters. It's the JR Sport Brief Show. Don't expect me to be here when I'm ancient.

My ass is going to be gone. It's the JR Sport Brief Show on CBS Sports Radio, 855-212-4CBS. That's 855-212-4CBS. On the other side of the break, you know, since we've talked about flopping, Messi is in America. Yes, Messi has come to America. He's in Miami. And now we can celebrate, right? We'll talk about it.

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